When Hawke\u2019s Bay Today spoke with her in June last year, she was fundraising to travel and get treatment in Mexico.<\/p>\n
Brough planned to go to the Sanoviv Medical Institute and was fundraising to cover the cost of $100,000 for three weeks of treatment.<\/p>\n
When in Mexico, she was advised to take a drug called Keytruda, which, in another blow to her health, left her with type 1 diabetes and impacted her liver. <\/p>\n
Doctors then recommended a leg amputation to help with the pain the clear cell sarcoma caused in her knee.<\/p>\n
She decided to go ahead with it in November, but then held off until March for one last summer with it. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had to talk myself into it, and the more pain I had, the more I knew that it was the right decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said pain was impacting her ability to be an active mum. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be grumpy mum that is just in pain all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said on the day of surgery in Auckland, she felt both nervous and excited. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I woke up and looked down, it sunk in as surreal, and there is no going back now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alicia Brough said she has noticed a decrease in pain since having her leg removed. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s now been three weeks since the amputation, halfway down her thigh, which meant the largest tumour in her body was now gone.<\/p>\n
It is unlikely to change her terminal prognosis, but she has chosen to focus her mindset on the positives of the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like a new person, I don\u2019t even care that I don\u2019t have a leg.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite her leg no longer being physically attached to her body, Brough said she still experiences phantom pain in her non-existent ankle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like I\u2019ve got an electric fence around my foot that shocks me randomly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still go to scratch it, like it still has itchiness, and it feels like it is dead weight hanging off there, and totally feels like it\u2019s still there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brough said she used a walker and crutches to get around and was able to stand for longer than before.<\/p>\n
She estimates it will take another three months to get her prosthetic leg to help her achieve a goal of playing sport again. <\/p>\n
She also has plans to modify her car so she can drive again, and she is trying to figure out how to vacuum. <\/p>\n
While in Auckland, Brough also underwent Cryoablation, a procedure that uses extreme cold (often argon gas) to freeze and destroy abnormal tissue, including cancer cells.<\/p>\n
She is waiting to see if that has helped. <\/p>\n
Michaela Gower joined Hawke\u2019s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke\u2019s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Hawke\u2019s Bay Today spoke with her in June last year, she was fundraising to travel and get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9092,107778,110107,13916,1561,198229,3033,1853,3470,15124,6098,6871,1976,78,809,26981,3523,2721,111,43,139,7805,69,2850,198230,7289,5196,5389,6859,5828,1316],"class_list":{"0":"post-381276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-against","9":"tag-alicia","10":"tag-amputated","11":"tag-asked","12":"tag-bay","13":"tag-brough","14":"tag-cell","15":"tag-central","16":"tag-clear","17":"tag-fight","18":"tag-hard","19":"tag-has","20":"tag-hawkes","21":"tag-in","22":"tag-keep","23":"tag-leg","24":"tag-medical","25":"tag-mum","26":"tag-new-zealand","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-newzealand","29":"tag-no","30":"tag-nz","31":"tag-pain","32":"tag-politely","33":"tag-professionals","34":"tag-removed","35":"tag-sarcoma","36":"tag-told","37":"tag-wanted","38":"tag-when"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}